Touch of Pink (2004)

“Oh, it’s the oldest story in the book. Boy meets boy, boy loses boy, then goes to Toronto.”

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Nuru Jahan (Suleka Mathew) is a middle-aged Muslim woman living in Toronto, Canada. When her friends and relatives get swept up in preparation for a wedding, she begins to feel a sense of having failed. She determines to reunite with her estranged son, Alim (Jimi Mistry), who lives in London, England.

The highly neurotic Alim is secretly living with his same-sex partner, Giles (Kris Holden-Ried). They have their own issues. Giles has a bit of a wandering eye and, for his part, Alim is imagining a friendship with (the late) Cary Grant (fairly well impersonated by Twin Peaks’ Kyle MacLachlan).

Conflict ensues on several fronts . . . between older and younger generations, tradition and progressiveness, reality and fantasy, and clashes of culture and sexual orientation. It’s essentially a dramedy of manners but — while Alim is perpetually stressed by all the juggling and compromise — the movie overall keeps things light and entertaining.

Much the same could said of the production’s craft, always unobtrusive. The most remarkable distraction was character actor Brian George of Ghost World (though he’s more widely known as Seinfeld’s Babu Bhatt).

I rarely have so little to say about something I enjoyed. Mostly, it was one of those cases of this-crossed-with-that. Combine the core relationships of Only the Lonely with situations from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Plunk it all down in the midst of Bend It Like Beckham.

As those titles may suggest, Touch of Pink is admittedly modest, a charming confection, slight and yet successful. In the words of Cary Grant, it’s a “pretty swanky joint, for Toronto.”

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Rated R

91 minutes